The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas many vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view now."
However even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both thin or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? This represents a nice way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the company increased from his previous salary when he was military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
